Ducati Panigale V4 R makes its public track debut at Brands Hatch

There’s a great interest to see how the new Ducati Panigale V4 R will behave in front of other superbikes on the road, and the Borgo Panigale based brand will show us the Superbike homologation special at the upcoming EICMA Milan show in November.

But besides the road version, fans of the Italian manufacturer are also very interested to know how the race version, the Panigale V4 RS, will behave when facing though competition next season during the 2019 World Superbike championship.

Up until now, we didn’t have much information about the race version, and besides the occasional spy photo or video, there’s not much information about the project.

But all that changed last weekend, when Ducati gave Michele Pirro, recently proclaimed Italian Superbike Champion with Ducati, an opportunity to take the Panigale V4 RS out for some track action at Brands Hatch, where the British Superbike Championship had its finale – and Leon Haslam (Kawasaki) took the title.

Pirro did complete some laps aboard his V4 RS, and that was the chance for MCN grab a video of the bike, where we can see her in action and hear the roar of its 999 cc V4 engine.

The bike that will be raced by Chaz Davies and Alvaro Bautista in 2019, is still in a development stage before being ready to face the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10RR of Jonathan Rea, but according to Lorenzo Zanetti, who also helped Ducati develop the V4 R alongside Michele Pirro, the RS version already shows a good performance.

Zanetti believes the new V4 engine is the right choice if Ducati really wants to beat the powerful Japanese bikes with their inline-four engines, and the changes made to the frame will also allow Davies and Bautista to be very competitive right from the start of the Superbike season.

The Italian also revealed that the Panigale V4 RS is developing a power very close to 250 hp, and the Magneti Marelli electronic packaged is already allowing Ducati to find the way in terms of settings, even if he also believes that the project is a bit behind from the planned schedule and Ducati should already been able to test the race bike in other tracks beside Aragon, Jerez and Mugello.

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With more than ten years as a motorcycle journalist, i enjoy everything that has to do with two-wheels. I'm a fan of sport bikes and i prefer riding them on a racetrack, but give me a road filled with corners and good asphalt and i'll be there to have some fun!